Fister pitches Red Sox past Indians, 6-2

Exactly which Red Sox pitcher of the past does Doug Fister most resemble — Luis Tiant or Aaron Cook?

Fister returned from mound Purgatory Monday night with a sensational effort against the Cleveland Indians, pride of the American League Central. Fister, reluctant owner of an 0-5 record and 7.46 earned-run average going into the evening, led Boston to a 6-2 victory with 7.2 wonderful innings of efficient work.

Tiant, the Red Sox Hall of Famer, was a mid-season pickup in June 1971, a castoff signed as a discarded free agent who was 0-7 in his first seven decisions in a Boston uniform before finally winning a game on the last day of August.

Things picked up for him in the coming years, it is worth noting.

Cook was a reclamation project in 2012 who wound up going 4-11, but had one wonderful game in Seattle on June 29 in which he hurled a two-hit shutout, throwing only 81 pitches for the day.

The Red Sox need Fister to be somewhere between Tiant and Cook — closer to Tiant, of course — because all the Addison Reeds in the world are irrelevant if your starting pitchers can’t keep you in the game.

A lot of work had gone into getting Fister to pitch as well as he did Monday night. He had dealt with all sorts of delivery issues.

“There was a lot of work in the bullpen and a lot of video,” he said, adding that his problems “had really taken away my deception.’’

It helped a lot that the Sox had a nice night offensively, one of their best since the All-Star break. They had 13 hits, including nine singles and four doubles, and jumped out to an early lead against Indians starter Mike Clevinger.

Chief offensive contributors were newcomers Rafael Devers and Eduardo Nunez. Nunez was 3 for 5 with two doubles, Devers 4 for 4 with a double. Mookie Betts had his best night in a while, too, driving in three runs with a pair of base hits. He had not driven in that many runs in a game since July 2, when he had eight RBI in Toronto.

Nunez is batting .471 with five RBI, two doubles and two homers in four games for Boston. Devers is 10 for 24 (.417) with two homers and a double.

The Yankees won again, also, so the Red Sox remain in second place, a half-game out. Boston was 13-14 in July, a not first-place stuff, but the month did not turn out to be a season killer. They were in first place by a game when it started, so their net loss in the standings was 1.5 games, hardly fatal.

It was a frustrating month in that the Sox bullpen blew six saves, but Boston came back to win two of those games so the net red ink for the pen was minus-4.

“The record is not something we are certainly pleased with,” manager John Farrell said. “There was some frustration; a number of games where one swing of the bat or one pitch made a difference.”

Indeed, 8 of the 14 losses were by one or two runs.

The Red Sox provided Clevinger with no respite whatsoever during his brief three innings of work. They reached him for seven hits and four walks, totaling five runs. Boston scored three times in the second, twice more in the fourth and added a run in the sixth.

Fister allowed only one runner to reach second base through seven, then Bradley Zimmer homered with two out in the eighth. Brandon Workman came in from the bullpen and kept things at 6-2 for the duration, ending a fine night, but disappointing month, for the Red Sox.

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